Bastion kicks off Capote gold exploration just days after listing

ASX newcomer Bastion has hit the ground running with exploration already underway at its Capote gold project within Chile’s mineral-rich Atacama region.

Capote surrounds the historical San Juan gold mine that produced 500,000oz of gold at an average grade of 40 grams per tonne (g/t) through to 1954.

Despite this impressive historical high-grade production, the project has remained untouched for almost 70 years and has only been the subject of simple rock chip sampling of the most obvious veins and structures with no modern drilling or geophysics.

This is a deficiency that Bastion Minerals (ASX:BMO) intends to remedy in its search for high-grade gold with exploration now underway.

Initial exploration results are due in the second week of April while field work for the Cometa copper and Garin gold-silver projects are due to begin in the second quarter.

“We are extremely excited to have exploration commence on the ground at our flagship Capote Gold Project in such a rapid manner, following the completion of our IPO and ASX listing,” executive director Ross Landles said.

“Capote offers a rare opportunity to access a large, under-explored historically significant gold district.

“In the coming months, we will deploy a systematic exploration program, including detailed geological mapping, surface geochemistry, airborne magnetic and hyperspectral data.

“We are confident this will provide a new perspective and help unlock the potential of one of Chile’s great high-grade gold mining districts at Capote.”

Capote gold project

Capote consists of about 77sqkm of granted mining and exploration tenements surrounding the San Juan mine about 20km northeast of Vallenar.

Known mineralisation at Capote consists of high-grade gold found within quartz-carbonate-sulphide veins associated with the north to northwest trending structures cutting the host granite and metamorphic rocks.

Bastion’s initial work consists of detailed rock-chip channel sampling of previously unsampled outcropping veins and structures to determine which structures have the potential for economic grades, widths and strike lengths so that drilling can focus on the most highly prospective areas.

Detailed topographic and short-wave infrared (SWIR) alteration satellite mapping has been collected to provide assistance with geological mapping and to identify previously unknown mineralised veins and structures.

SWIR is particularly useful in identifying large areas of alteration commonly associated with the mineralising events.

The company is also acquiring helicopter-borne magnetics and radiometrics that will enable outcropping structures to be traced beneath shallow soil cover and determine the sub-surface orientations on mineralised structures.

It will combine the regional geophysical and spectral data with several campaigns of rock-chip sampling and geological mapping to identify the targets most likely to produce a high-grade economic deposit.

Focus will then be placed on these targeted areas with detailed geological mapping, close spaced geophysics (magnetics and induced polarisation) and drilling.

This article was developed in collaboration with Bastion Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.